More Urbandale meandering today. Near the southernmost end of South Fairview Avenue, just south of the barely-existing-street known as Harton, I found this curb walk stamped by W.P. Bowerman. It’s in front of the only house on the east side of the 700 block, and near the southern end of the sidewalk there. The west side still has sidewalk to the end, at least for now. (And that’s foreshadowing of something I plan to get to soon.)
Tonight I’m returning to the E.M. Vannocker driveway apron from the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. The reason for this return visit is that I realized on a later walk that it is not just one stamp but a series of three. The first three houses south of Marcus all have this stamp in their driveway apron, yet I haven’t found one anywhere else yet.
I expected to find that all three houses were built at the same time, but sadly it wasn’t as neat as that. From north to south, they were built in 1924, 1923, and 1926. The ’24 and ’23 houses are similar, possibly identical, bungalows. The ’26 house is an American foursquare. Perhaps Vannocker was the builder of all of these houses, or someone the builder worked with regularly.
This is a new contractor for me, found on the west side of South Fairview Avenue between Elizabeth and Harton, in the Urbandale neighborhood. I can’t seem to find out anything about H. Widman the contractor. There was a Harry Widman who was active in the Capitol Grange in the 1940s and 50s, but I don’t know if there is any relation.
The stamp is in front of a house with a walk-out basement, which is very unusual for the neighborhood. I don’t think I’ve seen another like it around here.
Today’s stamps are kitty-corner to each other on the northwest corner of North Magnolia Avenue and Vine Street, meaning that one is really on Magnolia and the other on Vine.
H. Plummer can be found advertising concrete work in late 1960s and early 1970s Lansing State Journal classifieds pages. It turns out his name was Henderson Plummer and he lived in Mason, that is, when he lived in Michigan. He seems to have spent at least some of his time in Texas. While trying to find more about him, in hope of turning up a history of his contracting business, I found some pictures of apparent relatives, and was surprised to discover that they were Black and thus he probably was too. I say surprised because so far whenever I have managed to turn up a picture of a contractor featured in the blog it has been a White man. So, it is nice to find some diversity in the business. (I will also be very excited if I ever find a woman, but I’m not holding my breath in the meantime.)
I haven’t found much about Plummer, but I did find this page from a Plummer family reunion newsletter in which he gets a brief mention in “Notes of Interest”:
Henderson Plummer will complete his tour of duty in Texas, where he works on the toll-road in Houston. He will return to his extensive contractor business in Michigan where his family resides.
Reunion News, June 23, 1987, p. 7.
The reference to the contractor business gives me confidence that it is the same Henderson Plummer who had a concrete business in Mason and who poured this sidewalk.
I took a late walk after a lousy day, so this is the best I can do. It’s a Paul Wright stamp on the south side of Jerome Street between Clemens and Fairview. My brain wants to fill in the mis-struck final digit to make a 3, but when I compare it with the other Paul Wright stamp I’ve collected from North Magnolia Avenue nearby, it looks like it matches the shape of the 2 from that one. I’m inclined to guess they’re both 1952.
This pair of stamps is on the east side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. I’ve been striking out a lot recently on identifying contractor histories; I wasn’t able to find anything on Dumeney. It doesn’t help that there was a Gary Dumeney who served as the spokesperson for the Meridian Township Police for many years.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp! A pair, this time, on facing blocks. This is on the west side of Shepard just south of Marcus, in front of the house on the corner.
The year is extremely hard to read. I can definitely make out that the last digit is a 1. The decade digit is a lot murkier. Feeling it I thought I made out 2, thus 1921, but I can’t be at all sure. 1931 is another possibility.
This stamp is on the east side of North Fairview Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw, along with a few more like it on this block. Unfortunately, this is going to be another unsatisfying entry; I haven’t been able to turn up anything about Mel Taylor. The name is just too common to narrow down.
I’m assuming this is not the same Mel Taylor who was a manager with REO Motors in the 1950s, nor the same Mel Taylor who was a minister around the same time. I will have to leave this one unsolved for now.
A driveway apron on the north side of Jerome between Ferguson and Custer caught my eye. It is relatively uncommon to have stamps at all on the driveway, but this one had four! The two pictured stamps are set diagonally on either corner, facing the sidewalk.
At first I was going to joke that they must have been especially proud of their work to stamp it twice, but then I realized the likely reason. There are actually two contiguous driveways here that share one big curb cut, as is common in the neighborhood. The double corner stamps are probably signaling “we did this side; the other side is some other contractor’s problem.” The other side has a single 1987 BWL stamp on it.
There are also upper and lower blocks making up each of the two sides. The DPW stamps are on the upper block, next to the sidewalk. The L & L stamp is on the lower block, next to the road.
This sharp and tidy Knight & Wilkinson stamp is on the east side of North Magnolia Avenue between Michigan and Vine. There are several on this block.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find anything out about Knight & Wilkinson. In the process of not finding anything, I did turn up a very amusing page in the Lansing State Journal promoting the upcoming 1936 city Soap Box Derby. (It just happened to include a kid named Wilkinson.) It’s aimed at kids and includes a hilarious “how do you do, fellow kids” mix of formal diction and trying-too-hard slang. Regarding a film that entrants would receive a ticket to (“Warner Brothers’ latest smash-hit EARTHWORM TRACTOR”) it says, “Then, too, your jovial friend and another favorite of boys and girls, GUY KIBBEE has a big part… Boy! This will sure be one swell treat!”
So, I have nothing to tell you about Knight & Wilkinson, but I can illustrate the kinds of time-eating digressions I end up in while trying to do research for my entries.